Wednesday Writs for 4/10

[L1]: When we think about presidential assassinations, most of us think of Kennedy and Lincoln and the attempt on Reagan. Most of us know very little about the murder of the 2nd of our 4 assassinated US presidents, James Garfield. President Garfield was standing in the lobby of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad depot in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1881, when one Charles Guiteau shot him in the back, near his spine. Garfield would linger more than two months before succumbing to sepsis from the bullet which remained in his body. He died in New Jersey.

Charles Guiteau

Guiteau, whose family had tried unsuccessfully to have him committed six years prior, believed himself owed a position within Garfield’s administration for having campaigned for him. He made a pest of himself around the White House until he was barred from its waiting room. Feeling slighted, he began planning the assassination, selecting an ivory handled British Bulldog revolver for his weapon because he thought it would make a nice museum display piece after his deed was done.

Never have I passed five hours in a theatre so filled with thrills…. From the moment Guiteau entered the trial room it was a theatrical extravaganza. He was in irons, sandwiched between two deputy sheriffs, came in shouting like a madman, and began at once railing at the judge, the jury and the audience. A very necessary rule had been established that when he interposed whatever was being said or done automatically stopped. Then when he ceased, the case went on again as if nothing had happened.”

Though Guiteau claimed to be representing himself, his actual attorney was his brother-in-law, a Mr. Scoville. The defense raised several issues throughout the trial, including an objection to the indictment itself which contained contradictory counts. For instance, one count claimed the President died “then and there” after being shot, despite being factually incorrect. Another count accurately stated his death circumstances. It is thought this was to avoid dismissal based on an issue of jurisdiction if it was argued that the murder did not take place in DC because the death occurred in New Jersey. Indeed, the defense argued that the federal Court in DC did not have jurisdiction. Further, Guiteau argued, he did not cause the death of the president; he conceded only to having shot him, but maintained that it was medical malpractice that caused Garfield’s demise. (Historians offer some support for his position; it is believed that Garfield would likely have survived his injuries with better care, and if doctors of the day hadn’t done things like root around inside the body with dirty fingers and instruments in an attempt to locate the bullet. )

Guiteau was convicted after an hour of deliberations and the following February was sentenced to death. His lawyers believed his trial was full of errors, including the jurisdictional defects and cause of death as well as an issue of certain evidence presented to prove insanity. Scoville had tried valiantly to present evidence of his client’s mental defects, calling witnesses to testify to their observations of Guiteau’s instability. Guiteau was personally affronted by this tactic, insisting that he was a perfectly sane man who was led to commit the act due to pressure from God. Notably, when Guiteau testified in his own defense, the prosecutor asked “Who bought the pistol? You or the deity?”

Guiteau’s conviction and sentence was appealed to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which affirmed the lower court. This may have come as a surprise to Guiteau, who upon his conviction stated “Nothing but good has come from Garfield’s removal and that will be posterity’s idea on it…. I will go to glory. I won’t go yet. I expect to be president before I go.”

[L7]: Those speculating about the retirement of Justice Clarence Thomas can take a breath; he says he’s not going anywhere. Between him and RBG, it’s a morbid death race to see who lasts the longest- but the smart money is on Thomas, who’s only 70.

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Em was one of those argumentative children who was sarcastically encouraged to become a lawyer, so she did. She is a proud life-long West Virginian, and, paradoxically, a liberal. In addition to writing about society, politics and culture, she enjoys cooking, podcasts, reading, and pretending to be a runner. She will correct your grammar. You can find her on Twitter.

By my reckoning, Garfield was the second of four(4) assassinated presidents, the others being Lincoln, McKinley and Kennedy. I wouldn’t nitpick except it seems like it might be some in-joke or statement from you.

I enjoyed the detail on Guiteau. I had a piano teacher with that last name. I never asked if there was a connection, I was too young.Report

L1: There have been four Presidential assassinations: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy.

Three of them connected to Robert Todd Lincoln. He was present at his father’s death bed; he served as Garfield’s Secretary of War and was at the train station when he was shot; and he was present at the Pan-American exposition at the invitation of McKinley when he was shot.

Unfortunately for Garfield, it was Robert who recommended Dr. Bliss to administer the gun shot wound, mistakenly believing that Bliss had been his father’s physician. Bliss had been present at Lincoln’s deathbed, but the other doctors did not give him any role, a slight that did not prevent him from taking credit and taught him to not allow other interlopers to come between him and fame next time. “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”Report

The thing is they are still required to allow the condemned to meet with their chosen cleric prior to the execution, and that person has to be vetted and cleared, so all of their hand-wringing about how hard it may be to accommodate a particular faith is not solved by their chosen policy. So, once you’ve procured that cleric, how hard is it to go through a debriefing: “this is the procedure, you must stand in this spot, you may not touch the prisoner, if shit goes south you do X, failure to follow these rules is punishable by y,” etc. I guess this is a somewhat easier path to take but not by much.Report

The road where it happened runs along the top of a dam, dead straight for a bit over three miles, four-lane divided road with no intersections. So, a minute at 180 mph. Articles on the performance for that car model suggest a 0-160 mph time of about 27 seconds. Sufficient room to get it up to 180 and back down.

When I was young and foolish and worked at Bell Labs, there was an informal thing called the Century Club for idiots who got up to 100 mph on the road from the entrance to the main building. An entry curve, about a half-mile straight, then an exit curve onto the ring road. If you didn’t make the exit curve, you ended up in the cooling pond. I shared a house with two other engineers. I could get to 100 in my 280ZX by virtue of being able to come out of the entry curve at 50. One of my housemates could get to 100 on pure straight-line acceleration in his old Mustang with an oversized V8 he had tinkered with. The other housemate had a Camaro but always chickened out at about 80. The company made it a firing offense after three cars had to be fished out of the pond one month.Report

It's funny how browsers I think are a thing (specifically Vivaldi and Brave) don't even register on this list. Goes to show my techie bubble.

Browsers used to have better names. Netscape was brilliant. What the heck is a Firefox? (It's "Firebird" with IP considerations is what it is.) Chrome? Edge? Edge? Come on.

It's amazing how quickly Chrome accomplished what Firefox never did. It just goes to show the power of corporate muscle. When Google announced they were creating a browser I thought it was kind of dumb. I was wrong.

People say Firefox is better than Chrome now but I just can't get into the groove of it. Chrome doesn't work right on one of my computers and I use Firefox on it. it's passable, but I wish Chrome worked on it.

With Internet Explorer being replaced by Edge and Edge being Chrome-based, that means may be looking at 3 of the top 5 and 85% of desktop browsing occurring through Chromium browsers. That's concerning.

The ship's presence, he speculated, might have been related to the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Did Trump tweet anything about this, you ask?

The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia. We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian “Skyfall” explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!

As some of you know, I lost my father two weeks ago. My mother called me that Friday afternoon and said, in not such direct words, that “you better try to get up here if you can.”

I did, but I was too late. But in the aftermath of it, it was good to be there. My mother and I ate together for two weeks (my brother and his family are coming in later, such are the vagaries of scheduling bereavement leave in a government agency). We cooked some favorite things. My mom roasted a chicken and then laughed ruefully and said “I guess it’ll be harder to use a whole one up now” and the day after that, we made a favorite chicken enchilada recipe given us by a former minister of her church who had lived in the Southwest. And she baked a favorite cake of ours (my father was diabetic and we had to be careful about sweets in the house, and also baking was hard while he was so unwell). I think it helped, maybe?

There’s a German word, Kummerspeck, which literally means “Grief-bacon” and is used to refer to the weight you put on while grieving. I had scoffed at that before because the more minor griefs (eg., breakups) I had suffered made me NOT want to eat…..but I know I’ve put on a couple pounds in the last two weeks and will have to explain to my doctor when I go in for my checkup on Tuesday….

And people brought in food – lasagna, and bread, and other things.

And we went out to eat lunch a couple times; before my father’s health failed so much going out to restaurants was a favorite thing and my mom hadn’t been able to do it, really, for six months or more while he was needing her care.

When I spoke to her today after I got home, she noted that even though she had told the ‘church ladies’ who do bereavement lunches she didn’t want them to go to the trouble for the memorial service this fall (we have some people with some specific dietary concerns coming), someone did call her back and suggest a dessert-and-coffee reception before the service and I urged her to have them do that – I have fixed things many times for funeral lunches at my own church and it feels very much like it’s one kindness I can do for the family, and having a piece of cake or a few cookies may make small talk easier in a time when it’s going to be hard.

I admit I always rolled my eyes over the “how to relate to your weird dumb relative who isn’t like you” pieces, or, worse, the “you should refuse to spend time with them or try to harangue them into your viewpoint over the Thanksgiving table” pieces, because my family has a lot of….different…..people in it, and we’ve always managed. You talk about other stuff, that’s all. You talk about how a favorite team is doing or the funny things someone’s kids are doing or you share memories….

Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier and accused sex trafficker, is dead by suicide, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials told NBC News he was found at 7:30 a.m. ET at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York and that he hanged himself.

Epstein accuser claims she was ordered to have sex with prominent men

He was transported Saturday morning from the Metropolitan Correctional Center to a hospital in Lower Manhattan. Upon arrival, he was in cardiac arrest, people familiar with the matter say.

Epstein, 66, was being held on federal sex trafficking charges.

He was arrested July 6 in Teterboro, New Jersey, as he returned from Paris on a private jet.

He had pleaded not guilty and was denied bail.

The indictment on his case showed that he sought out minors, some as young as 14, from at least 2002 through 2005 and paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, federal prosecutors revealed last month.

Epstein was charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking. He faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty.